Former Lloyds boss apologises for mis-selling PPI

A former Lloyds Banking Group boss has apologised for the mis-selling of
payment protection insurance to customers

Ms Weir, who is now the finance director at John Lewis, said she regretted that the scandal had led to a breakdown in trust by customers and had damaged banks' relationships with the Financial Services Authority.

Helen Weir, who headed Lloyd's retail division between 2008 and 2010, told MPs at the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards that she acknowledged that the banking industry had mis-sold PPI alongside credit cards and loans.

"I acknowledge the mis-selling of PPI across the industry and at Lloyds and apologise wholeheartedly for my part in that," she said

Giving evidence alongside other former Lloyds executives, Ms Weir, who is now the finance director at John Lewis, said she regretted that the scandal had led to a breakdown in trust by customers and had damaged banks' relationships with the Financial Services Authority.

However, Ms Weir claimed the regulator had failed to raise any concerns about PPI when it investigated it in 2005.

But, QC Rory Phillips hit back, referring to the bank’s written evidence. He said: ‘Surely it’s stretching credulity for you to suggest to the commission that all of this problem is based – and I quote – on a genuine misunderstanding between the industry and the regulator.’

The bank has complained about the high number of "bogus" claims it was receiving, and has written to the Financial Ombudsman Services to call for claims management companies to be forced to meet the cost of spurious requests for compensation.

At the end of last year, the lender said the claims continued to make it loss-making despite an improvement in its underlying business.